Tasting Whiskey, Never Risky

Before my father, the Midlands Potato Farmer, took up potato farming in the Midlands (oh, and a Midlands-based day job as well) he was a distiller. Other children went to Mosney and Disneyland; we went to chemical plants and distilleries around the world. At the age of five, I was indifferent. At the age of 30, going to a distillery is a much more enticing prospect.

Carlingford, where we were at the weekend, is on the Cooley Peninsula, home of the Cooley Distillery. This, a long, long time ago, was one of the MPF’s projects and one of his former colleagues is now the Blender for the whiskey distillery. He invited us to come on a tour on Sunday morning. A trip down memory lane AND whiskey tasting? My siblings and I accepted with alacrity. And here we (or our feet) are:

We were taken through the process from the silos where the barley and maize are kept, to the mash tuns where they’re mixed with water to make a kind of porridge,

through the fermenting vessels (well, not literally through them) where a kind of beer is formed.

(Lui doing her best impression of a home economics demonstrator.)

Then we saw the cool room where the alcohol is distilled. (The Cooley Distillery is unique (in Ireland I think) for being both a malt and a grain distillery: they make single malts, single grains and blended whiskeys.)

Over to where the casks are filled – using something not unlike a petrol pump.

We learned about the whiskey getting flavour and character (and colour) from the casks and the fact that the alcohol that evaporates into the air in the warehouse is known as the angels’ share.

And then, of course, we had to taste some. Into the Master Blender’s office (and you’ve got to admit, it’s a pretty cool office to have):

We tasted single malts and blended whiskeys; some peated, some unpeated; 8- 10- 12- and 16- year-olds; some matured in madeira and sherry casks. My favourite was the Kilbeggan 15 year old … very, very, very smooth. Not being at all smooth, myself, I described it as ‘yummy’. Which it was.

The Cooley Distillery is the only independent distillery in Ireland and their labels are Glenore, Tyrconnell, Kilbeggan and Connemara. Try them and I think you’ll find, in the word of this connoisseur, that they’re yummy.